This isn't necessarily you want to do with files everywhere on your computer. Some programs are going to have various image files that they load up for buttons and such, some may have pdf help, files that you really don't want moved.
You might look into a program like Belvedere or Dropit. You can make up a variety of rules for various file types or have the programs monitor certain drawers for you. It can then move the files as you like or perform a variety of other tasks.
edit: fixed dropit link
A quick google search pulls up a couple programs.
There's probably more out there.
I use a cute little tool called DropIt: http://www.dropitproject.com/
You'll probably have to play around with it a bit to set up your own rules correctly, but it works like a charm.
I have not transitioned to paperless-ng yet. My old system (on Windows) is using ScanSnap ix500 automatic ocr and DropIt auto-rule/monitoring + Nextcloud. This has served me very well the last 3+ years, which is why I feel no pressure to move everything to my server environment yet.
DropIt monitoring feature
In this section you can activate the automatic
Folder Monitoring and configure:
→ Enable scan of monitored folders, to use,
or not, this automation feature.
→ Monitoring folders based on, to choose
the monitoring mode to use between: “Time
interval” to scan selected folders every
defined seconds, “Immediate on-change” to
process the contained files/folders when are
added or modified, “Time interval +
Immediate on-change” for both together.
→ Time interval in seconds, to choose the
scan delays (to optimize performance, we
recommend you to use a time interval
between 30 and 60 seconds).
→ Minimum size in KB, to scan only folders
bigger than defined size.
→ Show progress window for monitored
folders, to show progress window also when a
monitored folder is automatically processed.
In the list below you can manage your
monitored folders and associate a profile to
each one.
You can click Add or double-click the table to add a new folder and its associated profile, using the
following interface. It is also possible to use some file-independent abbreviations.
Organizing files can be done in a number of ways. First of all, I'd recommend getting a replacement for Explorer - I'm just going to go ahead and assume you're on Windows since you don't specify.
My personal favorite would be Xplorer2, at http://zabkat.com/ - runners up might be Total Commander or XYPlorer.
They have in common that you have two file areas side by side and can easily move stuff back and forth.
Another useful bit of software would be DropIt - http://www.dropitproject.com/
It can do a number of things, but you can make rules in it for specific types of files and where they're supposed to go. Then whenever you drag and drop files onto the target, they get moved to specific target folders automatically. It can also watch a folder or folders on a schedule - when files show up in the folder, they get sorted and moved elsewhere with no user intervention.
I like this one: http://www.dropitproject.com/
You can make rules for what it should do with specific file types, and you can literally drag and drop a folder on it and it will sort files based on your rules. May seem a tad intimidating at first but it's not bad, and if needing to split files up based on rules is a thing it's worth a look. You can also leave it running and have a schedule, so it can look at a specific folder once every X minutes perhaps and sort everything that shows up there.
Then, of course, having a good Explorer replacement can help a lot. I like xplorer2 a lot: http://zabkat.com/
You get the possibility to have two explorer windows open side by side and do comparisons and figure out file/folder sizes easily, preview files and much more. If you're going to be doing some "industrial strength" reorganizing of your files, you need something like this.
There are others that do about the same thing - XYplorer, Directory Opus, Total Commander etc, look around.
I use dropit http://www.dropitproject.com for managing my file. With the metadata of the file: (extension, creation date, modification date, size and many many more) you can sort them like you wish. It's a very powerfull tool that help me sort the 900 Go picture/video of my father that had no order before.
Sure, I am using DropIt since I couldn't get Powershell to do what I wanted.
This then let me tweak some of their samples of Associations on there website. So I have two Associations * Name - Move Images to Folder Based with Year and Month * Rules - .bmp;.gif;.ico;.jpg;.jpeg;.png;.psd;.tif;*.tiff * Action - Move * Destination Folder - H:\Google Drive_Others Photos\Mother's Photos\%YearTaken%\%MonthTaken%
Then I also have one set up to do videos as well in case she has any videos. So I drag her files that are unsorted to the dropIt application once a month or so depending on how often I check. I mostly set it up so I could have an easier time searching for recent photos.
I'm assuming it must be tough to implement because the devs are generally quite receptive. People still vote on it all the time, may as well add your name to the list!! LOL.
I've been trying to figure out a work around for this using something like Dropit , but I just haven't figured it out. In my case I don't care if it gets downloaded, but if it's more than 2 months old it can get deleted, so this would probably work. But in your case, you're saying don't bother downloading something if it aired a few days ago and wasn't posted.... that is definitely tougher to implement.
Perhaps DropIT (http://www.dropitproject.com/) is what you are looking for. It can automatically move and rename files according to rules you have predefined. It is very flexible and supports the usage of regular expressions in the rules you create.
So I found this http://www.dropitproject.com/
Its the closest thing I can find that MIGHT do what I am looking for, and perhaps others.
The only issue is I can't figure out what abbreviation I can use to have it out number things in the order I want. Only way I can figure out how to use it which isn't much better than manually renaming is setting it to userinput and just typing the new file name. It kind of boggles me there is no drag and drop GUI for easy file sorting or reorganizing.
So you would need to put all the files from all the folders into one folder, am I right?
In that case, you can use DropIt, I pretty much always use it for my files organizing.
Create a rule to take all files, and put the rule "move" to destination into one specific folder (In your case I'd call it 1---, just so it comes up first). After that just delete all the other folders and you're done.
You didn't include what OS you use, but if I assume its windows, you could use two pieces of software to achieve this result. Dropit can be used to organize files in a folder based on rules that you define. Once dropit places the files into the defined directory, you can use Dupeguru to scan that folder and remove duplicate files.
Just because Dropit hasn't been updated, doesn't mean it doesn't work. One of it's main features is to do exactly this.
The floating icon can be suppressed at startup by Right Click->Options->Various Tab->Start minimized to system tray. Or Right Click->Hide if it's already visable.
Directories can be monitored and automatically processed by Right Click->Options->Monitoring Tab->Enable scan of monitored folders. Add some folders to monitor, then set up a Move Association for each file type you want to move. See How to automatically scan folders
To select files to make 1GB folder is a hard (NP) problem, so no one have implemented such program for this case.
But you can use something like DropIt to help you selecting your files so you can have meaningfull folders and then select 1GB of files.
Remember: 1GB of files in the folder will not mean 1GB zip sizes.
I sort a bucket of files by extension and then by first letter so I can select it more properly.
Hope it help you.
My man! I really should have the means to give you reddit gold or some sort of gratification for your work!!!!!!
I'm usually only in the hoarding phase of getting things, and use a little DropIt to sort in folders by extension and letter. To RPG I try to improve by keeping folders together and for GURPS I really try do to my best. I have an Excel sheet that I made from SJG Site, do some cleaning and try do have the pdf titles in the same manner (Name and SJG Code), But now i can put it in a greater context.
Thanks again.
PS. I you like we can do some /r/DHExchange/ posts to help our mutual collections.
Cheers!
Personally, I use SyncThing to sync my files to a Windows machine acting as a server. I then use DropIT (an automated file management program) to move the files to another folder for further processing (eventually). This of course pulls the files off of my phone, which isn't a problem to me.
As far accessing them remotely, I think OwnCloud/NextCloud can do that.
DropIt is a free option that I use. It gets the job done, but it can be slightly buggy at times (nothing serious, just odd UI behavior). I'd like an alternative myself if there was one that had rules and profiles like it does.
It's a solid idea, but I think you'd be better with Dropit ( http://www.dropitproject.com/ ). Set up your filters, if you want by dates created, by parts in the name etc., then just drop the whole folder onto the floating icon and let it do its job. For your idea, you can set separate profiles (for different folders), then just pick files for folder 1, drop them there. Mouse scroll on floating icon for second profile (or right click), then pick files for folder 2. It's an awesome piece of software, I loved it ever since I first tried it. If you get confused around it and would need more info, feel free to ask.
The 3-2-1 rule is a really good guideline.
I suggest reading the wiki: https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/wiki/backups#wiki_the_3-2-1_strategy
As for zipping the files up, I'm not sure why you do that. You're not getting much, if any compression, and it seems to be a hassle. You can use 7zip and script zipping up your folders, in case you're worried about data corruption, but following the 3-2-1 rule would be better.
If you still like zipping stuff up, using something like DropIt, can do that for you and organize it as well, although it's Windows only.
Personally, I keep photos and videos separate. It's more of a personal preference though...
Have a look at this project. It does everything you want and beyond that. I used it to organize my files into specific folders according to file type and name. Really handy!
DropIT it's a automatic file sorter, incredibly useful but takes a while to get setup right.
There are two functions 1 you drag and drop all the files on the icon that it will pop up
2 have it sort by folder based on various set parameters
Have a look at DropIt http://www.dropitproject.com
“Drop a group of different files and folders on the floating DropIt image and it sorts them to defined destination folders, compresses or extracts them, opens them with associated programs or performs other defined actions.”
So you can drop a bunch of files, and DropIt applies rules you setup.
For example, any JPG image move or copy to a directory into sub folders by year the photo was taken (or you can put photo in sub folders of the year and in that year folder, the month in which the photo was taken)
Open Source.
Fair enough.
After looking closer at what you are trying to achieve maybe you could make use of Seer and DropIt together. Seems like that would get you closer to what Preview was doing.
DropIt
Open Source. http://www.dropitproject.com
“Drop a group of different files and folders on the floating DropIt image and it sorts them to defined destination folders, compresses or extracts them, opens them with associated programs or performs other defined actions.”
So you can drop a bunch of files, and DropIt applies rules you setup.
For example, any JPG image move or copy to a directory into sub folders by year the photo was taken (or you can put photo in sub folders of the year and in that year folder, the month in which the photo was taken).
There’s DropIt -
“Drop a group of different files and folders on the floating DropIt image and it sorts them to defined destination folders, compresses or extracts them, opens them with associated programs or performs other defined actions.”
So you can drop a bunch of files, and DropIt applies rules you setup.
For example, any JPG image move or copy to a directory into sub folders by year the photo was taken (or you can put photo in sub folders of the year and in that year folder, the month in which the photo was taken.
Open Source. http://www.dropitproject.com
I do this but it requires a a little bit of hack-fu/tinkerting.
I actually prefer my photos in the manner OP said. I also pay for Dropbox 1 TB and sync photos/videos to the dropbox cloud.
All you need to figure out is getting these images on a computer. These photos gets organized as folders using some assist from below apps.
Of course if you own both windows and mac, just have DropIt sort it.
Basically these app can watch a folder and look for files that match a criteria and move it, including renaming.
I move my images as
Camera Uploads > Photos|Videos|Screenshots > YYYY > MM - Month > OGFilename_YYYY-MM-DD_Timestamp.extension
I also use it to delete screenshots older than a year, organize my downloads directory etc ...
PS: If anyone wants my hazel rules, I can share once I get home.
I do hoard pictures and video clips lie crazy , have too many now :( i wish there was a cool face recognition software to organize my photos properly but right now what i use to organize different files in different folders is DropIt
You can sort your files by type size names and when its ready you can save the profile to use it again and just drop a very messy folder on it to sort everything automatically
This is exactly what I do.
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Once I have deleted all the guff, I just use DropIt to move the files. This all will automatically create folders and sub-folders based on the date of the file. If the correct year/month exists then it will put the file there, if it doesn't it will create it and then move the files. No effort required. It can also do a whole range of other automated file management tasks.
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I use Syncthing to sync photos from my laptop to my PC. I then use a program called DropIT to move the RAW files to a different folder on the PC. This then triggers Syncthing to delete the files on my laptop.
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http://www.dropitproject.com/ DropIt
From the website
"Drop a group of different files and folders on the floating DropIt image and it sorts them to defined destination folders, compresses or extracts them, opens them with associated programs or performs other defined actions.
You can define how to filter your files (by name, directory, size, date, properties, content, regular expressions) and associate one of the 21 available actions to perform (Move, Copy, Compress, Extract, Rename, Delete, Split, Join, Encrypt, Decrypt, Open With, Print, Upload, Send by Mail, Create Gallery, Create List, Create Playlist, Create Shortcut, Copy to Clipboard, Change Properties and Ignore). You can also organize your associations in profiles and automatically scan monitored folders at a defined time interval to process included files."
Open Source.
For discerning which file belongs to which show, I use DropIt to automatically sort my files into folders that Kodi can distinguish. However, I'm not sure that last bit you want is doable with this system.
I use dropit http://www.dropitproject.com/ to do this very thing to weekly shows. I keep the last 5 weeks, would be nice to bake it into something. Not sure if you could set this up to keep a certain number instead of age based.
Thanks for your input! :) Have a look at DropIt (http://www.dropitproject.com/). This app will run on your server and monitors a folder. As soon as a file appears, it will trigger a rule. Just set the scanner to output to this folder. The rule can do a multitude of things including moving the file to a specified location & renaming the file based on words found within to document.
I'm still searching for an all in one product to do what I'm looking for, but I may have to fall back to your solution if nothing exists.
uTorrent allows you to run a command or script after a torrent finishes. Does your torrent client have something similar? Can you designate a completed folder for torrents?
You can also use a free program called dropit that will monitor a folder and process the files within it. You can extract the rar files. I suggest you move the rar to another folder and then delete the rar say every 7 days so you have a backup of the rar for any reason.
For those wondering, if you manually acquire a video from a source that sonarr doesn't support, you don't need to manually move it for drone factory to work. I use dropit to monitor my "other source" download folder, and once a video hadn't been modified for 10 minutes this program moves it to drone factory: http://www.dropitproject.com/
The only thing I do manually is kick off the download, after that, my download manager, dropit and sonarr handle it automagically. I do use CDH for supported sources, however, to say there is absolutely no need for drone factory may not apply to everyone's situation.
No, this is more for an automated process that might help save hours of time. You could combine this with DropIt!. Sysadmins usually try to automate things that they or users do over and over.
Basically, you could setup a folder on a network file share and have DropIt automatically process it with a custom Imagemagik command. Imagemagik would process the image and make new copy. Users could just copy the images to this folder and Imagemagik processes for them. If you needed better control you could multiple folders to have Imagemagik do specific tasks like change to black and white, and sharpen.
If you need something manually try IrfanView is a good image viewer and processor that can change the images to things like black and white and other filters like sharpen, etc. Would this program be a better fit?
Hey thanks for the reply,
After doing some digging, I came across a program called DropIt which allows me to chose many folders to copy/move/compress etc... to a location. Works like a charm, it also gives me the option to overwrite files if the file is newer than the backed up one.
I must sound like I'm from the 1990's.
Here's another one, open source, Dropit. This tutorial explains how to do what you want with it.
Maybe in interim, could try to use something like DropIt. From site:
Drop a group of different files and folders on the floating DropIt image and it sorts them to defined destination folders, compresses or extracts them, opens them with associated programs or performs other defined actions.
A quick google search pulls up a couple programs for the copying part.
Also check http://alternativeto.net/software/belvedere/
>http://lifehacker.com/341950/belvedere-automates-your-self+cleaning-pc
if you want something that will run in the background, very easy, simple application. >http://www.dropitproject.com/
Something else that might be better